September represents for me change. In August, the temperatures of the summer begin to fall. In September, we start out with warm air and green grass, by the end of the moth, the trees begin to turn.
The cooling air of change can be felt in the church as well. We restructured The Youth and Upward. We upgraded the sound in the sanctuary. We reformatted Wednesday Night Dinner Church. We see new faces on Wednesday evenings. We see changing faces in the Praise Team. We begin the cycle of holidays leading to Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
I don’t like change because, as the French poet, Paul Valery says, “Every beginning is a consequence. Every beginning ends something.” I grieve the things that end.
The youth and Upward volunteer staff heard these words at our transitional meeting, “Before you can begin something new, you have to end what used to be. Before you can learn a new way of doing things, you have to unlearn the old way. Before you can become a different kind of person, you must let go of your old identity. So beginnings depend on endings. The problem is, people don’t like endings… Yet change and endings go hand in hand: change causes transition, and transition starts with an ending.” William Bridges, Managing Transitions, p. 23.
What does not change is Jesus Christ and the love of God. Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Grieve what ends. Celebrate what begins. Hold on to Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment